I'm a little concerned tonight about the message sent when a cop involved in a police brutality case winds up with a promotion. He was one of five charged in the suffocation death of Johnny Gammage.. the cousin of Pittsburg Steeler Ray Seales..

Gammage died nearly two years ago when five suburban cops pulled him over in his cousin's Jaguar.. Seals said his cousin was beaten. Police said Gammage attacked them. But here's a brother who didn't have a record.. no drug involvement..nothing. First, the D-A passes up homicide charges against the five cops.. Then an all-white jury acquits the so-called instigator.. John Voj-tas..one of three cops charged with manslaughter. After that the judge let the other two cops off. You can't help but wonder if the outcome might have been different had the Gammage incident been caught on tape like Rodney King's. But there had been a number of other incidents in the Pittsburg area where police got away with killing Blacks and other minorities.. And if Rodney King taught us anything..it's that irrefutable evidence doesn't always work.

The acquital wasn't insult enough.. Now Vojtas makes sergeant..What message does that send to young people?.. That you reward cops for disregarding a Black man's life? Some people say racist assumptions are built into the police-community relationship.. Why else would a Black man driving a Jaguar be considered suspicious? Doesn't the community deserve better? Don't we all? We saw from the lynching of Emmit Till in the 1950s that we can't afford to let matters like this get swept under the rug.. We can't afford to let cops.. when there's a shadow of suspicion of wrong doing be allowed to maove up the ranks while their victims are robbed of a future. If we do.. A Black man can never expect to get justice in America..and everyone else's liberties are in jeopardy as well...